About the project

A Grundtvig workshop in Finland on the topic of “Female participation in decision - making” encouraged the Active Women Association from Poland to apply for a partnership project among Greece, Poland, Czech Republic and Finland. According to the project adult education staff like coordinators, trainers, animators and teachers would increase their level of knowledge and educational skills to promote equality and women participation in public life.

The aims of the project were to:

develop European cooperation between different types of organizations working in the field of equal opportunities such as: associations, foundations, ngos, public authorities at regional level.
Create educational guidelines for activists, trainers and social animators in the field of popularization/dissemination of gender equality knowledge.
Exchange experience among partners from different countries and learn from more advanced societies, in the field of female participation in public life, such as Finland.
support the goal of gathering best practices in spreading knowledge of gender issues and methods of encouraging women to fully participate in decision making.
The project was realized in a period of 2 years with 12 mobilities for each partner organization and improved cooperation among the organizations, involved in the partnership. By the means of exchanging experience during European seminars the mobilities facilitated the development of innovative practices in adult education. Participating organizations were benefit from experiences of educational staff from other countries.

The aims of the project were fulfilled by the implementation of the following working methods and activities:

1) Partnership seminars in 4 countries with participants from Greece, Finland, Poland, and Czech Republic. The seminars were focused on:
— discussion on the female participation in decision-making in partner countries, presentation of actions, projects and activities realized by the partners
— study visits in hosting organizations and other institutions.
— meetings with learners – experiences sharing, discussion on the tools and measures of supporting gender equality in public life,
— gender oriented political education and ways of effective networking of decision-makers; methods of effective lobbying
— support and education of women in/to politics;
— exploring the educational methods such as public debates on the topic of women representation and participation in politics as well as debates about the state of political culture in respective partner countries
— mentoring activities, professional trainings of women politicians
2) Local activities. Each partner organised activities during the 2 years period according to the needs of the persons involved.
3) Information dissemination and sharing of the knowledge-publication and internet tool

The meetings and the agenda were as follow:

During the international meetings apart from the European partners learners were invited to participate in order to gain knowledge and know-how.

1. Meeting in Finland
Kick –off starting point

2. Meeting in Poland
The meeting was focused on networking.

3. Meeting in Greece:
The topic concerned the political campaigns . The meeting was held in collaboration with the local branch of Unesco, the Ecological movement of Thessaloniki the Aristotle University ( Faculty of Political Science) and the Municipality of Thessaloniki.
The Greek invited speakers and the European partners gave their own input on practices and experiences from running electoral campaignes for female leaders and they shared their own experiences as active females in politics. A fruitful discussion was held among the partners and the learners from the local community.

4. Meeting in Czech Republic:
The topic of gender training was explored

5. Meeting in Czech Republic:
The final meeting concerned the feedback on the partnership, the evaluation of the project itself and the final report.

The project strategy assumes that less advanced countries (e.g.Chechz Republic, Poland, Greece) can benefit from experiences of the countries where equal opportunities have been on the top of the agenda for a long time (Finland). Thanks to exchanging experience within the partnership all the participants from various organizations may develop their competencies and gain new approaches of their educational tasks, programmes, methods, and activities.